Research in tropical rain forests: Its challenges for the future TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DYNAMICS IN THE EXTRACTION OF NON- TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS IN THE NORTHERN BOLIVIAN AMAZON Mr. W. Dijkman, Mr. D. Stoian, Ms. A.B. Henkemans, Dr. W. Assies, Dr. R.G.A. Boot1 Programa Manejo de Bosques de la Amazonia Boliviana PROMAB ABSTRACT For more than a century, northern Bolivia has had a tradition of commercial forest exploitation. For several decades into the twentieth century, the extraction of rubber and Brazil nuts was combined with subsistence agriculture, resulting in an agro-extractive cycle that fostered a sedentary lifestyle of forest dwellers. The extraction of rubber and Brazil nuts used to be organized in a debt-peonage system, often leaving extractivists in debt to the patron. The decline of the Bolivian rubber market during the 1980s induced the breakdown of the agro-extractive cycle. Most people left the patron-controlled extraction areas (barracas), and either established themselves as farmers in independent communities close to urban areas or migrated to the cities where the processing of forest products had increased job opportunities. About half the Brazil nut collectors are now seasonal migrants, mainly from the cities. Depending on access to land, forest resources, and markets, extraction-based income can contribute to more than 50% of the overall household income, especially in the more remote forest settlements. Some processing plants gain direct access to the Brazil nut resource base through vertical integration, thereby increasing their control of the production process. These large enterprises partly take over the role of the former patrons (e.g. in making advance payments to the Brazil nut collectors). The increasing demand for Brazil nuts and the increased in-country processing in Bolivia has benefited all participants in the production process, including the collectors. Especially the collectors from independent communities manage to get a higher price for the nuts they collect. Even so, an unequal exchange continues to be characteristic of many non-timber-forest-products-based (NTFP-based) production systems. In addition, more recent extractive activities (e.g. logging and palm-heart extraction) are threatened by depletion of the resource base. None of the extractive activities thus fulfills all the criteria of sustainable development. 1. INTRODUCTION The extraction of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) has been advocated as a land-use practice that 1 All authors are involved in the Programa Manejo de Bosques de la Amazonia Boliviana PROMAB, mainly through Utrecht University. Dietmar Stoian is working on behalf of the University of Freiburg within the framework of the project 'Contributions of Non-Timber Forest Products to Socio-Economic Development= jointly funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Willem Assies is attached to the Center for Development Studies in Latin America (CEDLA), Amsterdam. 149 The Tropenbos Foundation, Wageningen, the Netherlands integrates the conservation of the rain forest and the economic development of the forest-dependent people (see, e.g., Nepstad and Schwartzman, 1992; Allegretti, 1990; Plotkin and Famolare, 1992). Based on the concept of sustainable development as defined by Barbier (1987), NTFP extraction is said to be economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially acceptable. The potential economic value of NTFPs has been demonstrated by the bench- mark study of Peters et al. (1989). An income comparison for one hectare of forest near Iquitos (Peru) between three land-use types (i.e. logging, cattle ranching, and NTFP extraction) revealed that the net present value of NTFP extraction is highest. At that time, through the IUCN-Nl study of de Beer and Dermott (updated in 1997), the Netherlands participated in the international debate on the economic value of NTFPs in South-East Asia. These and other studies emphasized not only the subsistence value of these products but also their monetary value (see, e.g., Anderson, 1990; Balick and Mendelsohn, 1992). A second study, initiated in the early nineties by IUCN-NL and executed by the Prince Bernhard Centre for International Nature Conservation of the Utrecht University, showed the dynamics in the export value of some NTFPs for several Amazonian economies (Broekhoven, 1996). The study revealed that, although in several cases the economic value of these products is substantial, the assumed sustainability of these exploitation systems is often based on wishful thinking, rather than a thorough analysis of all components of sustainability. The second IUCN study launched several new initiatives in the Netherlands: C In 1992, Utrecht University, in collaboration with the Universidad Tecnica del Beni and the Instituto para el Hombre Agricultura y Ecologia, started a multi-disciplinary research, training, and extension programme on the sustainable exploitation of (non-timber) forest products in northern Bolivia: PROMAB. C In 1996, the CIFOR-BMZ Project on =Contributions of non-timber products to socio-economic development= commended its collaboration with the socio-economic component of PROMAB. The CIFOR-BMZ Project comprises the Universities of Freiburg and Hamburg, Germany, and partner institutions in Bolivia and Zimbabwe; C The Tropenbos Foundation published a research strategy on this topic (Ros-Tonen et al., 1995), incorporating NTFP research in their ongoing research (see, e.g., van Valkenburg, 1997). In this paper, we shall summarize some results of the socio-economic research derived from the collaboration between PROMAB and CIFOR. The content of this paper is based mainly on the following publications by Assies (1997), Stoian (1998), and Stoian and Henkemans (1998). 2. NORTHERN BOLIVIA Northern Bolivia is still blessed with large tracts of relatively undisturbed rain forest. The study area encompasses the Department of Pando, the Province of Vaca Diez (Beni Department), and the northernmost part of the Province of Iturralde (La Paz Department). On an area of about 100,000 km2, the population in 1997 was estimated at 140,000 people, 70% of whom reside in urban areas while the remainder inhabit the rural areas (Stoian and Henkemans, 1998). More than 95% of the original forest cover is still intact. Between 1986 and 1990, the mean annual deforestation rate was 0.15 % (DHV, 1993a). This contrasts sharply with deforestation in adjacent areas in Brasilia: Acre (0.58%) and Rondonia (2.09%). The low population density in the rural areas is a result of a low level of social services (education, health), poor infrastructure, and the lack of employment opportunities. In the light of low soil fertility and poor agricultural tradition, slash-and-burn agriculture suffers from low productivity. Agrarian underdevelopment has its roots in the prohibition of subsistence agriculture during the boom years of rubber production. Nowadays, agricultural development is impeded by 150 Research in tropical rain forests: Its challenges for the future insecure land rights and the lack of access to credits and technical assistance. 3. DETERMINANTS FOR SUSTAINED EXTRACTION OF NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS From a socio-economic perspective, the sustainable exploitation of NTFPs is determined by a complex set of interacting and interrelated factors (Ros-Tonen et al., 1995). Chief among them is probably the economic incentive for those involved in the extraction, processing, and marketing of NTFPs and in forest management. For the collectors of NTFPs, the incomes generated from this activity and its competitiveness with other economic activities are the key factors determining their participation. For the entities involved in processing and marketing, the determinants of their continued involvement in the exploitation of NTFPs are the availability and costs of labour, credits, technology, access to resources and markets, and, above all, the internal rate of return as the main determinant. Some of these factors are spatially dependent, or, in other words, they vary from place to place. These considerations have led to the following aim of the socio-economic research conducted jointly by PROMAB and CIFOR: To determine the underlying factors of spatial and temporal dynamics in forest resources in northern Bolivia. Research is divided into three interrelated studies operating at various levels: C The analysis of livelihood strategies of the people living in the forest reveals the scope of their economic activities and their motivitation to participate in them. Their situation is highly dynamic as new job opportunities are perceived outside the forest and as others enter the forest (i.e. the increasing timber logging, and agriculture and agroforestry activities that are generating more prosperity because of the improving infrastructure and a change in the tenure systems); C The variation and dynamics in NTFP-based economies at the rural-urban interface. This study will determine the dependence of various types of rural and peri-urban households on NTFP-based income, the underlying modes of NTFP commercialization, as well as the distribution of benefits along the marketing chain of Brazil nuts and palm hearts; C The spatial and temporal importance of forest products in the regional economy. This will result in an economic and socio-political perspective for the forest industry and consequences for the use of natural resources. It is revealing the partly contrasting